


Coming Home

by theInnocent6



Category: Lady Bird (2017)
Genre: Coronavirus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theInnocent6/pseuds/theInnocent6
Summary: Christine "Ladybird" is catapulted into the year 2020. She is in her third year at NYU, in the midst of what will become the coronavirus pandemic. Here, she will face downfall and heartbreak, reuniting with her California life when school ends unexpectedly. Stay tuned.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. The Reckoning

1/1/20. Second avenue had obliterated me the night before. I rolled over in bed, my hair stuck to my neck. A cup lay in bed with me, the rest of my pillow soaked. Presumably, I’d tried to sober up with some water, but had spilled it everywhere instead. My eyes watered; I blinked rapidly. Pushing myself up on my elbows, I looked in the mirror. A face smeared with makeup greeted me. Hello, 2020! I think I’m going to puke.

Keeling over the toilet, I reconstructed the night in my head, careful not to think too hard. My head pounded.  
It crawled back up into my bed. Celeste and I, ducking in and out of different bars, had made fast friends with some boys standing outside a bar. In reality, they’d sort of catcalled us, but we were a bit too interested in the possibility of free drinks to care about misogyny. My Gender Studies professor would be furious. Predictably, Celeste bummed a hit off this guy’s juul….Ted. I’d taken up a lot of things during my time at NYU, from falafel to faletio, but nicotine hadn’t ever interested me. I rolled my eyes for the five minutes it took her to get a fix. She turned to me, laughing at something he had said. Something about New York guys having the worst jokes crossed my mind as I remembered. The evening seemed to blur. The last hour of our evening was spent stumbling to the karaoke bar, singing at said karaoke bar, and taking a round of sake. Somehow, 2 am, we made it into the uber.

Back to reality. Celeste rapped on the door, suddenly standing over me. “Morning, Sacramento,” she murmured. She handed me a full glass of water; I rolled my eyes. _Nothing except a smoothie or some greasy fries could cure me now. ___

____

“I want cold or hot,” I told her. She nodded. It was already 11 am, and I’d just made it out of bed. My winter reading assignments had to wait--I barely made it to the toilet.

____

This was literally the first and last journal entry I’d made for Prof. Arden’s class. We were expected to write about one day a week in minute detail. He considered it an exercise in superfluous writing, blending an “immersive experience with the tinge of sad reality that haunts us all”. Unfortunately, he had put the words ‘tinge’ and ‘haunt’ together and said ‘taint’. Our creative writing class had spent minutes on the verge of laughing. I didn’t hate Dr. Arden, but as the weeks went by his critical eye was as demeaning as it was terrifying. I hadn’t managed perfect grades, so this class was going to hold up my scholarships.

____

Concerned with that, it was my job to make up a good dozen or so entries between January and what was now March. _Happy Spring Break, you lazy bitch, _I said to myself, taking a swig of _LaCroix _. I’d tried to hop on the spring break train with a couple of friends, but one by one, they’d bailed.The anxiety of spending a week getting heat stroke and alcohol poisoning was overshadowed by my irrational fear of picking up a cough and dying. The whole world was starting to chew their nails just like I did. Ye old China virus. That’s not how I would go--my poor mom would kill me. “You’re the only one that can pay for your college tuition,” she’d said when I went to move into my Manhattan apartment. I took that one to heart. Debt collectors in my mind would steal my thrifted Jimmy Choos right off my feet as I was being laid in the grave. Had I come to terms with imminent death? My eyebrows raised, and I started typing. “1/8/2020 This Sunday…”____

____


	2. Valentine's Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christine thinks back to Valentine's Day, 2020.

“2/14/2020 I had a very lonely Valentine’s Day…” I paused. Looking out, the brick outside my window was tinged by the sunset. I desperately needed some air. The stale smell of wine bottles littered on the floor hung in the air. Two bottles in one week; I’d like to think I deserved it. Paint flicked off as the window creaked open, stepping out onto the fire escape, walls on either side. How had my Valentine’s Day gone exactly? Terrible. Outright terrible. I lazily scrolled through Snapchat memories, clicking on photos. Saved in my phone was a screenshot from Julie. An emerald cut diamond on her finger--engaged! “I SAID YES!” she’d screamed into the phone from California. “I’m going to be...MARRIED!” _How exactly had we gone from gorging on communion wafers to getting married?_ Questions swirled in my head just as they had a month before--should I be engaged? How could she be sure he was the one?

A breeze caught the stairs above me and I came to my senses. My phone was ringing. I ducked my head, reaching for the phone. Maybe it was an old Tinder match coming to his senses with a proposal.

‘Mom’. Ughhhh. “You have to come back. I’ll get you a ticket right now. You have to be home,” a stream of consciousness.

“Mom, you’re a nurse. Literally you’re going to kill me.” She started crying. I took the phone away from my ear and reached for some chips sitting in an open bag on the floor. Wonder who taught me to behave with so much theatrics? Pfft. 

“Oh get it together, _Marion_ ,” I griped.

“You selfish bitch! Do not call me that.” I swallowed hard.

“Yeah okay, mom, but everything’s shut down. Get back to me when it calms down--I’m not too worried.” I’d jump from the balcony of boredom before I croaked of coronavirus. The alliteration got me, and I reached for a receipt to scribble down my thoughts.

“I’ll send you something to do. Just make sure to spray your package down with Lysol when it arrives,” she said finally. Maybe she’d send some hair dye. I’d rather die in New York than hop on a plane to Ball-sack-cramento. I hung up without saying goodbye.

I sat down at my desk...Valentine’s Day. Perhaps I should call Julie. If her toxic positivity was at all hampered by the virus, she could be outright bearable.

“How’s Thomas?” I asked. An hour flew by before I could get a word in edgewise. I typed slowly, adding some remnants of my journal entry. Every few words she said, I’d quietly add another letter. 2 - / - 1 - 5 - / - 2 - 0. We were edging closer to the present era. Julie droned on about not being able to go to church and something like that. I hadn’t been since Christmas. She’d called me a ‘Chr-easter Christian’, one of those assholes that only goes to Mass on the major days--Christmas and Easter. Plenty of people are born and die every day. For some reason, this guy got just a little bit more attention. I must have rolled my eyes almost audibly. Julie stopped. “Are you doing alright? I’ve been praying for you, Christina,” she cooed. _Blech._

“You wouldn’t have to do that, I’m perfectly fine. And, like, very happy,” I retorted.

“Are you telling me that, or yourself?” she snorted back. Silence. Her tone softened. “Anyway..I’m glad you called...but pretty sure I’m making dinner tonight. I’ll tell my parents you send your regards”.

“Regards?” I said in a fake British accent. “Tell them I wish both pleasantries and health upon their souls.” I hung up the phone laughing with her. The second the phone went quiet, my face snapped back into its usual severe grimace. Resting bitch face, typical New Yorker. I was almost proud of it. I turned to the mirror, catching a side glance.

The darkness around meant I didn’t see much more than an outline. Light from the kitchen brought out my cheekbones, flecked with color. They were still rosy from talking. My eyes darted to the 'to list' next to the mirror. "do laundry". If you'd tell me a few months ago it would only take a week to grow tired of wearing thongs, I would've sued. But, with the realization that no one would see my little cheeks, the novelty wore off quickly. _Were laundromats even open?_

It was then I realized how cold it was. I’d left the window to the fire escape open. My skin went taut with goosebumps and I made a sprint for the window, tripping over wine bottles. A shiver snuck out of me. Fiddling with the ruffles, I closed the window. So much for saving on utilities. I’ll make up for it by not showering tomorrow. That made me smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued.


End file.
